Last year and this year I grew some softneck garlic in the raised beds in the garden. I was really pleased with how they turned out. I ended up with about 20 garlic bulbs, all of them with good size cloves. As well as those in the raised beds I also put some around the garden, mostly around the apple trees. I carefully harvested some and left others to become perennial after a suggestion from someone on this blog. The ones I left developed into a healthy clump with lots of stems. I have harvested them again this year to see what happens next year.

As well as the softneck type I also planted some hardnecked rocambole (Allium sativum ophioscorodon) or serpent garlic. It gets its name from the fantastically coiled stems that appear as it emerges from the underworld.

Apparently if you want to harvest the below ground bulb you should cut off the top (the scape) once it has made a couple of loops to divert the energy to the bulb development. If you leave them the energy goes into the above ground bulbil. In a forest garden it seems that there might be advantages to using the above ground bulbil, even though it is smaller. Using the above ground bulbil means you don't have to disturb the soil. The plant can be grown through ground cover and low herbaceous plants and is easy to harvest. I assume that the plant will also continue to grow as a perennial if the remainder is left in the ground. New plants can be easily propagated from the bulbils.

This short video shows them stretching up as they uncurl their last loop. In the background is a small Annie Elizabeth cooking apple tree on M26 rootstock. Looking back in my notes I see that I planted these back in February 2010. They didn't do much last year, but all of the bulbs came up strongly this year. Curiously I didn't know the common name for rocambole when I decided to plant it next to an apple tree.